Sunday, January 5, 2014

Right Notes for TOEFL IBT – Excellent Course from Jaime Miller

Hi everyone,

Some people might
think, “Taking notes? Not a big deal! I just write down what I hear.” If you
can do that, you’re lucky. Now consider writing down only a small part of what
you hear. If you know any shorthand methods , you’re lucky again. Most people don’t
know shorthand. You have to take notes as effectively as possible since this is
a key factor in your success on the TOEFL exam which, in turn,
can be important in fulfilling your dreams of working or studying in the United
States. Jaime’s excellent course can help you learn how
to take notes well.

In a previous
entry, I wrote about my TOEFL experiences. On the TOEFL exam
there are lectures and conversations that you have to listen to in the
lis-tening (obviously), speaking and writing sections. Without taking notes,
you can understand the main ideas, but you probably won’t remember many details
that would be important in answering the multiple choice questions in the listening
section or summarizing a lecture or conversation in the speaking and writing
sections. I tried the following in 2012, before I knew about Jamie’s “Right
Notes” course:

- First, I did a whole listening
section from the Thomson TOEFL Practice CD. I took notes as best I could. I got
a score of 24 out of 30. This score showed my lack of skill in taking good
notes.

- In two weeks, I forgot almost
everything from these lectures and conversations. With-out taking notes, I did
the same exercises again. I got a score of only 15. This meant that I did not
recognize many important elements.

From my personal
experience, I can tell you that taking notes is seriously important.

What can Jamie provide? Her course is called “Right Notes – Essential
Concepts”. It is a 3 week online course. You can do the course in 21 days, but
you get access to the learning material on the internet for six months. It's
important to know that during the first three weeks of your access, you can
access only one new section of material per day. You can take a look back, but
you can’t jump the gun (jump the gun means ‘to start doing something too
soon’). Oops, an idiom! I love American idioms, so later I’ll return to them.

But take care!
Jamie doesn’t provide miracle methods. Just buying
private lessons or any of her courses is NOT enough. "If you do the assignments in Right Notes or not, my
life changes very little. I mean, of course I want you to be successful, but my
TOEFL score doesn’t need to improve.Doing the assignments helps your TOEFL score improve." (Maximize your time by Jaime.)

Jamie teaches you
the seven essential concepts of note-taking in her videos. They are filtering,
abbreviations, symbols, handwriting, spelling, T-chart for dialogues, and
focus-number-expand. She gives you exercises and also shows you her methods.

What did Jamie do?
She left out some technical words that don’t carry the main content and
abbreviated many words. The Thomson TOEFL book and other materials give this
advice as well, but they don’t provide the key to developing this skill step by
step. Through the span of this course, you can develop your skills for taking notes
step by step.

This course has two
versions:

The ‘self-study’
version costs $37 and the ‘self-study + feedback’ version costs $120. The next feedback course begins on January 15th, 2013. If you
don’t like the course, you can ask for your money back within 7 days. If you have the
self-study course and you like it, you can upgrade to the 'self-study +
feedback’ version at any time.

I took the TOEFL
exam in 2012, but I bought Jamie’s “Right Notes” recently in December 2013. You
might wonder, “Why? Do you wanna take the TOEFL exam again? You're not? Are you
crazy, you threw away $37!!!???” This course is useful not only for the TOEFL
exam, but in many other circumstances as well. If you encounter a situation in
which you have to listen to lectures, this skill can be useful. For example, in
my professional career I can take advantage of the “Right Notes” course. Maybe
one day I’ll need to take the TOEFL exam again since my score expires in two
years. Maybe later I might come across a situation that requires a valid exam
score. In this case, the “Right Notes” course is not enough, I will need other tools as well from Jamie.

Hi Gardeniafly! How
are you? What do you think about taking notes?

"I believe that
learning how to takes notes well can be useful in any person's life, no matter
the person's profession. When taking the TOEFL exam, it's important to realize
that the exam requires you to not only know English well, but also how to take
the exam well. Taking good notes is essential in doing well on the TOEFL exam
and it's a part of knowing the test well. Like Attila said, you can apply the
skills you learn from the “Right Notes” course in other areas of life as well.
In my opinion, a successful note-taker is a successful learner!"

She is not searching new students anymore. But I can recommend someone else, or you can visit Italki.

This is important to remember while you are browsing IELTS or TOEFL preparation course, if you are planning on applying for citizenship or collage and intend to use your results as an entry requirement.

My son's friend is studying for the toefl exam right now. If I remember right, he's taking a toefl online course to prepare. I'll need to tell him about this article because I think he will find it helpful. http://onlinetoeflcourse.com/

Wouldn’t you love to give in your best and get the score that you have always wanted? In order to get a good TOEFL score, it is essential that you know what exactly a good TOEFL score is, and how much you should aim for learning.